Coming fresh off announcing their brand new album Cracker Island and a full European tour, animated band Gorillaz have set its sights on North America. The band kicked off the second leg of their world tour last night (September 11) in Vancouver, BC at the Rogers Arena. After multiple festival stops and tour dates across Australia and Europe, the Damon Albarn-led band is still surprising fans through performing deep cuts and the undeniable pageantry that goes into their live shows.
Since the Gorillaz formed in the early 2000s, Damon Albarn has been far from fearful about pushing the limits of the animated four-piece. The band has been an indie head’s dream since their breakthrough single “Clint Eastwood ” mixed dark chord progressions with masterfully penned verses from hip-hop legend Del Tha Funkee Homosapien. This collaboration would become the blueprint for the band, create the tone through the instrumental, and craft a catchy hook while features come in to add extra texture and color. While the band’s collaborative nature has been a focal point on most of their albums, all credit goes to the former Blur frontman Damon Albarn whose laundry list of influences melt together under the Gorillaz, allowing the cartoon band to shapeshift through multiple genres within each album.
The first half of the show was pretty straightforward, the band went through classics from their first two albums like “Last Living Souls” and “M1 A1” while mixing in later material like “Tranz” from the band’s underrated 2018 release The Now Now and “Rhinestone Eyes” from the critically acclaimed Plastic Beach album. The Gorillaz surprised fans by performing “New Genius (Brother)”, a deep cut from their self-titled debut. Much to everyone’s surprise, this is the first time the band ever performed this song live, this speaks to Gorillaz’ massive catalog of fan favorites and chart-topping hits. The band started bringing out surprise guests during their performance of “Opium” which features Atlanta duo EARTHGANG. Legendary emcee Bootie Brown of The Pharcyde joined Albarn and company to perform “Dirty Harry”, Brown also joined the band during their encore to perform “Stylo” and “New Gold”. De La Soul’s Pos also made a short appearance during the encore to perform their massive hit “Feel Good Inc.”.
The Gorillaz are flying all over North America to bring this tour right to your doorstep. Their next stop is a sold-out show at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Washington. After that, the band will make stops across the west coast before moving their way across the country.
Check out the full setlist, tour dates, and footage from last night’s show below;
Dates: https://www.gorillaz.com/tour/
